Occidental Petroleum Corp. swung to a $2.61 billion loss in the third quarter amid heavy write-downs and announced it will exit and evaluate some of its operations.

Chief Executive Stephen I. Chazen said in a news release that Occidental will exit the Williston Basin and consider minimizing its involvement in its Middle East and North Africa noncore operations.

Houston-based Occidental, like many other companies, has been hurt by the tumble in energy prices.

In the third quarter, Occidental said WTI and Brent marker prices were $46.43 per barrel and $51.17 per barrel, respectively, down more than 50% from a year earlier.

Still, Occidental continued to add to its production. In the latest quarter, production climbed 16% to 689,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Overall, Occidental reported a loss of $2.61 billion, or $3.42 a share, compared with a profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.55 a share, a year earlier.

The latest quarter's results included about $3.4 billion in asset impairment charges.

Core earnings were 3 cents a share, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast a loss of a penny a share.

Total revenue fell 36% to $3.12 billion.

Shares of Occidental, down 13% this year, were inactive in premarket trading.

Write to Chelsey Dulaney at Chelsey.Dulaney@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 28, 2015 08:35 ET (12:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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